Groups hold competing rallies on Scout policy12 protest ban on gay members while others show support

By Brian Louis, Journal Reporter

The two
sides in the debate over the Boy Scouts of America's ban on openly gay members
and leaders held small, competing rallies yesterday in front of the Old Hickory
Council's headquarters on Silas
Creek Parkway.

Twelve
protesters demonstrated against the policy and carried signs, including some
that said "Hate is not morally straight" and "Scouting for
all." "The policy is not a Boy Scout thing to do," said Matt
Hill, a senior at ReynoldsHigh School, who
organized the protest.

Hill,
18, said he was forced out of his Boy Scout troop in Winston-Salem about four years ago after he
openly said he was gay and founded Students Promoting Equality, Awareness &
Knowledge, formerly the Gay/Straight Alliance, at
Reynolds. Yesterday's rally was the third protest against Scout policy that
Hill has organized in Winston-Salem
in recent years.

Hill's
friend Molly Miller, 18, said she was shocked that he was forced out of the Boy
Scouts. "I don't think they should be able to discriminate," said
Miller, who went to the rally to support him. "I never thought they would
do something like that."

Hill
said he would "love to get back in the organization" and he'd like to
be a Scout leader some day and give back what the Boy Scouts have given him. He
joined the Scouts in fifth grade.

Meanwhile,
on the other side of the driveway leading into the region's Scouting
headquarters, about 30 demonstrators supporting the Boy Scouts' policy held
such signs as "God bless the Scouts," "Honk for the Boy
Scouts," and "God made Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve."

The
counter-protesters were organized by Vernon Robinson, a member of the
Winston-Salem City Council and candidate for the Republican nomination for the
5th Congressional District. The Boy Scout oath says that a Scout will do his
best to "keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally
straight." Robinson said that "homosexuality is inconsistent with
being morally straight."

Dennis
Cheek, 49, of Winston-Salem
said he was there to support the Boy Scouts' right to set their own policies.

He held
a sign that said "God bless the Boy Scouts."

He said
that opponents of the Boy Scouts' policy "have the freedom to form their
own group." The issue of gays in the Boy Scouts gained widespread
publicity in a lawsuit that ended up being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2000,
the high court ruled that the Boy Scouts, as a private group, has the right to
ban gays as leaders.

Steve
Wilburn, the scout executive with the Old Hickory Council of the Boy Scouts,
which covers the Winston-Salem
area, said that the group didn't have a problem with the demonstrators outside.
He said that the Boy Scouts organization respects the rights of both groups to
express themselves.

He also
reiterated the Boy Scouts' policy banning gays, saying that "we don't
believe homosexual behavior is consistent with the values and ideals of the
Scout oath and Scout law."